Sketches
by quicksilver-wind
Summary: To Draco, grace and decorum are important above all else, so of course he loathes Ginny. But a few simple, impulsive gestures can change everything. ONESHOT. Rated for mild language


**Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize**

Just a little story that got me reading other fics about Ginny drawing.

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If there was one thing he loathed, it was her. She was so... Gryffindor. Ginevra Weasley and Harry Potter were the most Gryffindor people he'd ever met, but at least Potter had an excuse. After all, the boy had been attacked and orphaned as a baby and grown up as the savior of the Wizarding world. Of course the idiot would be a Gryffindor, there really was nothing else he could have done.

Weasley on the other hand had no such excuse. She was a pureblood witch, and despite her lowly connections, the Weasley family was as old a line as the Malfoys, and both families had once been equal in terms of influence and wealth. In fact, if he wasn't much mistaken, Weasley Manor still existed, now in the hands of a minor family who had gotten rich.

"Draco," whined Pansy irritatingly, "Why are you ignoring me? You always do that. Pay attention to me!"

He snapped. Pansy was always annoying, that was a given - he dated her because she was from a good family, and she was an excellent shag. There was certainly no feelings involved, and since she was clearly showing that she was not worthy of him with her pitiful plea for attention, he brushed her off.

"I will give my attention where it is due, Parkinson, and your shamefully obvious demands for attention not only show that you lack elegance and good breeding but also that you are unworthy of my attention." She gaped at him, looking rather like a startled pug, and then stomped off. Not even Pansy had the gall to stick around after something like that.

Theodore Nott whistled lowly, eyebrows raised. "That was harsh, mate. She may be an obnoxious bitch, but she is your girlfriend."

"Probably not anymore," replied Blaise, leaning back in his chair. "She may be annoying, but she isn't as stupid as she looks. She knew exactly why you were distracted, and that pissed her off."

Draco turned to look at his friend, grey eyes flashing dangerously. "And where, pray tell, was I distracted?"

There was a reason that Draco liked Blaise and Theo - they weren't scared of him and knew him well enough to know when he was serious and when to tell him to cut the crap.

Blaise glanced over at Weasley. "You checking out the blood-traitor princess strikes me as enough reason for her to be upset. I don't know what's gotten into you mate, but every time she's around, you just stare at her."

Draco now looked furious. His sneer was fixed to his face only by the thinest thread, and slight spots of red had appeared in his cheeks. This was one of the times that they knew he was serious.

"I loathe that entire family, Zabini, and you know it. I was merely contemplating my disgust for her. At least Potter has a reason to be the way he is. She has none at all. She's so goddamned Gryffindor!"

Nott laughed. "I think she'd be glad to hear it. You should go right on over there and tell her so."

Draco had had enough, so he rolled up his parchment and left, the veneer of calm only faintly concealing his anger.

Ginevra Weasley was loud, inelegant, brave to the point of idiocy, as stubborn as a mule, and incredibly temperamental. For all the drabble that the Sorting Hat spouted about courage, in reality, Ginny was the quintessential Gryffindor. It annoyed him. For a boy who had grown up with decorum as his first commandment, the Weasleys in general were a strain. Only the twins had annoyed him more, but at least their displays were entertaining and infrequent. It seemed that everywhere he went, the Weaslette was around the next corner.

Nott and Blaise soon caught up with him, and the three descended into Slytherin together, the one place where the Weasel could and would not touch him. He knew that when they entered the portrait hole, half of the Slytherin girls swooned, and the other half wanted to but had better taste. It was practically a requirement in Slytherin to be either beautiful and clever or ugly and capable of following orders. The likes of Tracey Davis, Millicent Bulstrode, Crabbe, and Goyle formed the second, lower tier of Slytherin house, and people like Draco, Theo, Blaise, Daphne Greengrass and Pansy formed the upper crust.

No matter what anyone had to say about Draco, he was undeniably gorgeous, sophisticated and cool. And remarkably self-centered. Draco did nothing that didn't serve some purpose of his, whether it be to solidify his influence in the school or simply to make him happy.

He sat down beside Daphne, rather than Pansy. Daphne and Blaise had recently split up, which meant that she was single, and while she wasn't the kind of girl who jumped from man to man or one who was nauseatingly desperate, she liked him a great deal.

"So you broke up with Pansy?" she asked him quietly.

He eyed her cooly. "I did. She has an unacceptable habit of being undignified, and I simply can't accept it any longer."

Daphne's icy blue eyes eyed the other girl for a moment. "She does indeed. She disgraces us all sometimes. But then, you used to as well, so maybe she'll grow out of it."

This was exactly why he had chosen Pansy. Daphne was a master manipulator, and she enjoyed baiting people. He wasn't sure that she really had a heart, and like him, she was ruthlessly self-interested. Unlike him, however, Daphne was content to set up complex plans which didn't come to fruition until months later. She reminded him of a beautiful, graceful spider, spinning invisible webs to trap the unsuspecting.

Yes, he admitted to himself, she scared the daylights out of him sometimes. But perhaps that was a good thing after all. She was the polar opposite of Weasley, who wore her heart on her sleeve and wouldn't know grace and subtlety if it bit her on the ass.

"Perhaps I erred in my younger days," replied Draco coldly, "But I have done nothing recently to deserve that critique now."

Daphne didn't smile. She rarely did. Instead, she turned to him and fixed him with a piercing stare. "No one is flawless, Draco. That's all I wished to convey. You are, of course, above reproach. How is your mother, by the way?"

Her smooth change of topic threw him for only a second. Daphne had learned from her mother, the best in the business, but Draco had learned from Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. Narcissa was the smoothest person that he had ever met, and his Aunt Bella was quite probably mad, so he caught up quickly.

"My mother is in excellent health, I believe. Is there any specific thing you wished to inquire about? I'm certain I could owl her."

Daphne gazed at him again. "That's fine, Draco, I was just wondering. Shall we go to dinner?"

He only realized after they left together that he'd been neatly had. She'd insulted him, diverted the subject away from that, got him to agree to dinner with her, and infuriated Pansy all at the same time, and he was certain that she'd meant to throw him off balance as well. Maybe dating Daphne was not the best idea. He was a master at the art of deception and elegance, but it was tiring to maintain a facade all of the time. He wondered idly if students in other houses worried about that.

After dinner the next day, Draco headed out to the Quidditch pitch. He didn't have practice, but his schoolwork was done, Blaise and Nott were slogging away at some pathetic divination homework, and Daphne was making him too uncomfortable to stay indoors.

When he got outside, he was irritated to see that someone else was already on the pitch. When he caught a glimpse of the fiery hair, he was pissed off. Nonetheless, it seemed uncouth to barge in and force her out, so he decided to wait.

He sat under a nearby tree and watched her fly. In the evening light, her hair didn't seem to be quite so obscene, in fact the way the setting sun lit it on fire, blowing out behind her as she flew, reminded him of art. Her face, ruddy and freckled in the light of day, was bleached alabaster by the sunset, and she looked for all the world at peace.

It was only a few minutes until she dove to the ground, toes skimming the grass, and hopped off her broom. He saw her scribble something on a piece of parchment drawn from her pocket and then tie it to one of the goalposts with a bit of ribbon she had conjured.

After Weasley was well out of sight, he mounted his own broom and flew towards the goalpost. On the parchment, in a script that was oddly elegant, was written the word "Thanks". He wasn't sure it was meant for him, but something made him think it was, and the gesture surprised him. It was simple, but graceful, completely lacking in affectation. He wasn't sure whether it lessened his disgust for her or not, but his chest felt oddly tight for a second, and he wasn't sure why.

Three weeks later, he was in the library when he saw her studying with other students at a table near the window. Once again, her hair was alight, and something about her posture made her seem separate from the others. It struck him that she seemed _transcendent_.

She glanced his way one, as he walked by, but ignored him. After she had left, he walked over to the table and found another slip of parchment. It had a small sketch of the willow tree by the lake. Again, he noted that her style was somehow pure. He pocketed the sketch and left the library. That night, he placed it in his trunk alongside the previous note.

After a few more of these encounters - a sketch of the castle left at her seat in the library, a doodle of a lion left inside one of the books he checked out, and a note that she dropped while walking by him that had the vague outlines of a figure - he was completely obsessed. It had yet to dawn on him that her gestures were just gestures, impulsive and elegant, untainted by complex machinations, so he was intent on finding out her master plan.

He was lying on his bed one night, staring at the sketches. They revealed more than seen at first if he examined them closely. Underneath the willow tree, there was a figure leaning against the trunk just out of sight, and only the person's shadow and the tips of their legs were visible. In the same sketch, he found that what he had originally taken for a mistake was actually the shadow of a person standing out of sight, looking towards the lake. The sketch of the lion had fewer secrets, but he noticed that the lion was not the tacky Gryffindor lion evident on their banners. It was instead a proud and noble beast, and he recalled that lions had once been called the kings of beasts. This lion had the word Gryffindor curled into its mane, and its eyes reflected a fierce agony, a willingness to sacrifice everything. This concept was as foreign to him as muggle technology would have been, but he understood why it called to the Gryffindors, and he admired it. The sketch of the castle revealed hidden people everywhere - a face in a window, a hand reaching from behind a curtain, a boy lying curled in bed, and numerous others. Surprisingly, the most obvious figure escaped him at first glance. Standing on the Astronomy Tower was a girl, hair blown back by the wind and hands braced against the railing as she looked into the storm that was brewing on the horizon. And in the storm was another face, one he was noticing only now. It was a face that he had seen only in his father's study, in an old picture. The Dark Lord as a young man. Why that would appear in her drawing he didn't know, and it troubled him. In each sketch was a poignancy and a purity that he had never known or experienced.

Something about the last sketch troubled him as well. The outlines of the figure were lightly drawn, but etched in every line was torment. He wondered who the person would have been, had she finished drawing it, and he wondered what horrible thing had happened to them. Draco was forced to conclude that, based on the emotional depth in the sketches, that either Weasley was a manipulator on an entirely different level than Daphne, which scared him, or she was leaving her sketches for him to find without some greater plan.

Before he could put the papers away, Blaise bounded over to see what he was engrossed in, and seeing them, snatched them away. Nott came to look as well, and Draco cursed himself repeatedly.

"Draco, mate, who drew these for you?" asked Theo admiringly, "Cuz she really must either like you or hate you."

"What do you mean?" he asked. Neither possibility had really struck him. "And hey, what makes you think a girl drew them?"

"Well it's pretty damn obvious," said Blaise, "First of all, I'm not sure that any teenage guy draws subtle pictures like this, second, I know that they wouldn't give them to you even if they did, third, this note is clearly in a girl's handwriting, and fourth, I think the girl in this sketch of the castle is the artist."

"Hey, what's this?" asked Theo, snatching the castle sketch, "I know this face, the one in the storm cloud. Isn't it--"

"Yeah I think so," replied Draco. Blaise didn't recognize it, but they filled him in anyways. His father wasn't a death eater, but then, neither was Draco or Theo.

"Its the Dark Lord, when he was younger and before he got all snakey."

"Why the hell is some girl drawing you pictures of herself facing down the Dark Lord as a kid, and what girl even knows what he looked like then anyways?"

Draco wanted to kick both himself and Blaise, because Theo, always too smart for his own good, put together the dots that Draco himself would have missed if he hadn't known the answer. His eyes widened ridiculously, and he stared at Draco. "What the fuck! Draco, mate, what in Salazar's name are you doing?"

"I don't know!" he shouted back, "I don't fucking know! I just keep finding them places!"

"Could one of you please fill me in? Please?" asked Blaise.

Theo glanced at him. "Weasley drew them," he replied shortly.

"Salazar's sweatiest robes, Draco," cursed Blaise, "What in Merlin's name do you think you're doing?"

Draco flinched slightly. Neither of his friends invoked Slytherin's name lightly, and what Blaise had just said was heinously rude. They were both incredibly upset.

"How would she know what He looked like though," asked Blaise curiously, "I mean she can't have ever seen him, she wasn't born yet."

"In second year, she got dragged down to the Chamber of Secrets," replied Draco quietly, "My father had given her a diary possessed by the Dark Lord. She must have seen him then."

They harassed him about his idiocy for a few more minutes and then they all went to bed, but the next morning, Draco got up early to miss them at breakfast. He wanted to talk to a certain red-haired Gryffindor.

Luck was with him, that day, and he found her sketching at the Gryffindor table, alone.

"Weasley," he said, and he was actually surprised at how nice he sounded when he was genuine.

"Malfoy," she replied, staring at him in much the same way as Daphne did. Actually, he scratched that thought and replaced it. Like Daphne, if felt like she was staring into his soul. Unlike Daphne, it didn't feel like she was rummaging around for all of the details that could be filed away for future plots. It just felt like she was seeing.

"Will you take a walk with me?"

"I suppose."

They left the hall together and wandered outside. "I have something for you," he said, reaching into his bag and pulling out her sketches. He handed her the unfinished one. "Will you finish this one?"

She smiled at him, a real smile. "It is finished. I don't go handing out unfinished work."

"But... who were you trying to draw?"

She slipped her slender hands into her bag and handed him a sketchpad. He flipped it open and looked through. On each page was an unfinished figure. Some were almost complete, others were only a few strokes, but each conveyed an emotion as powerfully as if they'd shouted it. The differences were subtle, but no design was the same. She handed him another sketchpad, and inside were hundreds sketches of the school and the grounds.

"There are people in each," she said, "Still life is stupid - if there's nothing alive, its' not life. Besides. There's more to life than some fruit in a bowl."

He had stopped at a picture of just that - fruit in a bowl. At his second glance, he caught that in the side of the apple was an eye. In the orange was a faint smile. In the pear, a hand. Pieces of people were scattered throughout the mundane fruit and he knew, in the same way that he knew what grace meant, that this was the work of a master.

"Do you ever draw portraits?" he asked, and she looked directly at him. Her lack of subtlety was refreshing now, rather than grating.

"Never," she replied, "I'm too scared of what I find. I drew my mother once, when I came home from the summer after my first year. I never noticed before that that she kills herself worrying about us. I never noticed that among the laugh lines are all the worry lines, and that she looks tired sometimes, and weary from everything she's lived through. I'd never noticed that, but when I drew it, I saw. Now I see it every time I look at her. Everyone has things like that, and sometimes they're meant to stay hidden. Drawing exposes them, makes them raw. I'm afraid to see what people choose to hide. So no. I never draw portraits."

He didn't know what to say, so he dropped all artifice and kissed her. She resisted him for a second, but it was half-hearted - he knew that had she really wanted to resist, she would have hexed him to bits.

He went to class all smiles that day, and neither Daphne's piercing stare or Theo's worried glances could wipe them from his face. Almost a week later, in the evening, he was sitting in the common room with his friends, writing a potions essay, when a knock came on the common room door. Everyone looked up. It was rare that someone would knock on the portrait hole. When a fourth year got up to open it, everyone was shocked to see red hair outside. The fourth year tried to shut her out, but Weasley just barged right on in as if she owned the place.

Draco was no longer irritated at her lack of decorum - he had to admit that the girl was ballsy. And besides. When it counted, she was as graceful and elegant as the best, and she was as pure and as fresh as new snow at the same time.

"I brought something for you," she said when he stood to meet her. Everyone else was glaring at her or staring at him in befuddlement.

She pulled out a sketchpad and handed it to him. "Look at it later, okay?" she asked, and he nodded. "See you later, Draco," she said, and all but skipped off, entirely unaffected by the hostility in the Common Room.

"Bye, Ginny," said Theo suddenly, his deep voice reverberating around the silent room.

She stopped, and grinned at him. "See you later, Theo. Bye, Blaise!"

Draco wanted to laugh out loud. She was brave to the point of stupidity alright. Fortunately, his friend also thought this was funny, and waved goodbye. "See you, Gin."

All of the Slytherins were now completely baffled, and the three boys withdrew to their dorm to avoid the stairs. Theo burst out laughing. "I've changed my mind," he said after a moment, "I don't think you're making a mistake."

Draco was honestly shocked, and glanced up at his friend. "What made you change your mind?"

"I saw those drawings. Before that, I'd have said that Ginny Weasley's about as subtle as a club to the face, but now I think there's more to it. Plus, she's got guts, skipping in here all cheerful, like she hasn't just stumbled into the snake pit."

"And she likes me," added Blaise, "So how bad can she be?"

"So what did she give you?"

"A sketchpad."

Both of the other boys rolled their eyes. "Duh."

"Merlin's pants," said Blaise, "You're about as obvious as she is sometimes."

Draco withdrew a bit - he wasn't sure what was inside the sketchpad, and didn't want to betray anything private. On the first page was a sketch of the Quidditch pitch. No one was on it, but tied to one of the goalposts was a piece of parchment and some ribbon, and in the air within the goalpost he recognized the angles of his own face.

He flipped the page. The next was an outlined figure. It seemed to be flying on a broomstick, and it was entitled "Freedom". It went on like this. On every page was a poignant, heartfelt sketch. Some of them were breathtakingly beautiful, others heartbreakingly sad, and one or two were bleak and empty, scenes full of chaos but devoid of meaning. On the second last page were two outlined figures which seemed to be embracing, and he thought that he caught the shape of her nose in one, and the point of his chin in the other. It had no title, but it didn't need to.

The very last page meant the most to him, though. It was a self-portrait of Ginny. She was looking straight out, with a small smile on her face, but like she said, she was laid bare before her own pencil, and he saw her bare of any pretense. To his surprise, she was radiant. Despite the fears and weaknesses in her eyes, despite the shy tilt of her head, she was beautiful. Underneath, in her elegant script, she had written:

_I told you that when I draw a portrait, everything comes out. So here it is - that's the real me, take it how you wish. I drew all of these sketches for you. Some of them were inspired by you, others were just sketches, but I've drawn them all since that morning. Owl me when you open this, please - I want to know if I went to far. Just let me know._

_Ginny._

He finally handed the sketchpad to Blaise and Theo (after magically concealing the last page) and owled Ginny.

_I saw it. It was perfect. You are radiant in your picture. I can see that you were scared, drawing it. You shouldn't have been. I loved every page of that book, but the last was the best. Be my girlfriend? Please?_

_D.M._

_Ps. Can I show Blaise and Theo? You managed to impress them_

Her owl came back while they were still looking through.

_Yes. Yes to all. Sweet dreams, Draco. _

_- G. _

He practically did a jig around the room. Then he went over and waited until they got to the last page. They were already completely won over, but when he showed them the last page, Blaise clapped him on the shoulder.

"Definitely doesn't hate you mate, but I think you're risking the alternative."

"No risk about it," replied Theo, "She definitely loves you."

The next morning, he went to breakfast blissfully, and found Ginny. He was right in the middle of kissing her soundly when another redhead, this one less elegant, less beautiful, and far less welcome ran over and made a choking sound.

"OI MALFOY!" he yelled, "WHAT IN THE NAME OF GODRIC GRYFFINDOR'S MOST BAGGY Y-FRONTS ARE YOU DOING TO MY SISTER?!"

Thankfully, Ginny gave him the finger, and he fainted, so Draco could keep kissing her. Ah well, he thought, getting killed by the Weasley brothers sort of comes with the territory. He wasn't really expecting what came next.

"GET YOUR BLOODY HANDS OFF OF HER, FERRET BOY!" shouted Potter.

He rolled his eyes, and Ginny pulled out her wand to curse Potter. The Boy Who Lived showed great wisdom by retreating.

"I guess decorum isn't everything," he said, pulling away to take a breath. "It might be refreshing dating someone who can curse people off for herself."

Ginny effectively stopped that train of thought by kissing him again, and they strolled out onto the grounds hand in hand to find a better place, her alight in the rising sunlight.

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Note: Please read and review - also check out my other fics, Fire and Ice and Jagged Edges. I hope you liked it but forgive any overt errors - I just sort of wrote it and put it up. I'm really supposed to be studying for exams right now ;).


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